The Nuclear Security Summit gathered 47 world leaders in DC to commit to achieving the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material, such as plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and securing loose nuclear weapons within four years. President Obama linked the summit to the vision of achieving a nuclear weapons free world, which he outlined in his speech from Prague last year. With world leaders gathered, the summit was also an opportunity to raise the profile of nuclear disarmament.

On the April 5 anniversary of President Obama’s speech from Prague, the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World delivered a letter signed by more than 100 faith, peace, and arms control organizations. As part of his speech from Prague, President Obama stated that negotiating a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty between the U.S. and Russia “will set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this endeavor.” The coalition’s letter asks that the president use the occasion of the April Nuclear Security Summit to announce a new summit on nuclear disarmament in 2011. The letter can be viewed here.

The second version of the letter asked the president to make the announcement at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the UN in May. It was delivered to the Obama administration ahead of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference with 130 local, regional, and national organizations signed on from 31 states and Washington, DC. Thanks to all the organizations that signed on to the letter. We are no longer taking signatories.

Countries pledged to take specific actions to contribute to the four year goal of securing vulnerable nuclear material during the summit. Ukraine has announced it will give up its highly enriched uranium in the next two years. Chile shipped its 40 pounds of highly enriched uranium to the US for safekeeping last month. South Korea will host a follow up Nuclear Security Summit in 2012 providing an opportunity to ensure progress is being made.

Tags: nuclear disarmament, Nuclear Security Summit, nuclear terrorism, Nuclear Weapons

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Nuclear Security Summit, Obama, Obama on Nuclear Weapons, fissile matierals, nonproliferation, nuclear disarmament, nuclear security, nuclear terrorism, nuclear weaopns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.